Eleftherios P. Diamandis

Abstract

On the south coast of Cyprus, between the port cities of Limassol and Paphos, lies a rock marking the spot where the Greek goddess Aphrodite is said to have emerged from the ocean's foam. The Roman poet Ovid recounts the event—along with many other mythological transformations said to have occurred on the island—in his epic poem Metamorphoses. Eleftherios Phedias Diamandis, whose Cypriot ancestry stretches back a thousand years, grew up playing soccer in the fields outside of Limassol, not too far from where the rock lies. Using stones for goal posts, he and his friends played long into the evening, until they could no longer see the ball. In the summer, he worked in the fields, shaking the long sweet leathery pods from the carob trees that dot the island. It was hard but rewarding work. At the end of the day, he would come back to the modest stone house he shared with his parents and older sister Elli. One day when he was about 12 or 13, he was sitting in his room listening to a local British station on a small transistor radio when he heard the sounds of the top 20 hits come through his earphone. “I put it in my ears and the music just gave me this internal energy and amazing pleasure,” he said. The musicians—the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who—became his heroes. “I was mad about them,” said Diamandis, who is professor and head of the division of clinical biochemistry in the department of laboratory medicine and pathology at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine. Passions have a habit of descending on Diamandis with almost mythological fury. Years later, in college, he picked up a tennis racket for the first time and instantly fell in love with the game. Though …